Scientists find a way to induce memories in brain

By Latif Salman on 09/11/2012 11:19 PST

Many of us have seen memories being induced into brains in sci-fi movies. Guess what? This stuff is no longer fiction. While we have seen scientists being able to gather personal information with the help of human-brain interfaces, they have taken yet another leap ahead now.

According to a new study, scientists have been able induce memories into brains. The study has been published by Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine.

During the course of the study, Professor Ben Stowbridge and his student, Robert A. Hyde were able to create the necessary circuits in mouse brain tissues to create new memories. These memories were short-term in nature but still served as a sufficient proof-of-concept.

According to Hyde, “The type of activity we triggered in isolated brain sections was similar to what other researchers have demonstrated in monkeys taught to perform short-term memory tasks. Both types of memory-related activity changes typically lasted for 5-10 seconds.”

The study was published in Natural Neuroscience and was meant to find out how exactly short-term memories are formed in our brains. The researchers are hopeful that the ability to induce memories into brains can eventually help people suffering from Alzheimer’s or other memory-related diseases.